Wondering if someone can quickly post a pic their ring ramp, with maybe a small ruler or something flat to showing how it lines up with the ring hole.

Thanks

Can anyone tell me if this post to the right of the ramp is supposed to have a rubber sleeve on it?

IMG_20180825_182435 (resized).jpg

Yes, mine has one.

Cool, thanks!

Can anyone help with this. Was trying to take Balrog apart, and the top of the bulb snapped off. When I tried to remove the base, it's attached by a thin wire.

What should I do?

IMG_20180825_184820 (resized).jpg

IMG_20180825_184853 (resized).jpg

The part that's stuck is a blob of solder. Try grabbing it with pliers. If it won't come free you can melt it with a soldering iron.

WOW, the bottom of the bulb base pulled out and is stuck to the spring inside the bulb holder. Is that what it looks like to you?

See if that will pull out without wrecking the bulb holder, and get a new balrog LED flasher.

Looks like the holder is broken. That springy wire has detached from the bottom and is kind of wobbling around. Anyone know where I can get a replacement?

Ok guys, now I have a big problem!

While I was trying to fix the leaf switch on Balrog today, I ended up breaking the bulb and the housing (see post above).

When I went to turn the game back on, I'm getting a loud humming sound from the cabinet speaker (much louder than it sounds in the video), and everything along J7 appears to be out (Balrog motor, upper right VUK, sword lock, slings, etc.).

I also noticed that fuse F7 keeps blowing. I've put a few fuses in already and they blow immediately.

Another thing I've noticed is that the Balrog seem to not tuck into hiding all the way. When I push it manually, it just pops back and sort of sits in the middle as you'll see in the video.

I've gone as far as I can with the manual. Looks like J7 goes to a DC Bi directional relay board, but not sure what that is.

Any thoughts on what this might be, or what I should check?

Since you were working on Balrog concentrate on that. The two common failures surrounding Balrog are the relay PCB mounted underneath the playfield near Balrog (cold/broken solder joints) or the Balrog wire harness (broken wires inside the sheath which could short against each other). Additionally you may have caused a short working on the Balrog switch itself. I’d put my money on the latter, the Balrog harness or the switch.

Just sent you a PM.

I'll take a look around to see if anything looks off or I see any cold soldering points.

Is that switch or bulb on the inside of Balrog part of the J7 matrix. Looked to me like the motor on the bottom of the pf was, but nothing on top.

I'll check that PCB if I can find it.

Man, always something with pinball!

So where exactly is that PCB? Tried looking under the pf, but see nothing there.

Also, detached the wire harness that goes up to Balrog (switch and bulb I believe) and humming sound persists.

That Balrog flasher socket is in the circuit for F7. I would replace that socket cause I've never seen anything like that. It could be shorting. If you're still blowing the fuse with the Balrog disconnected, it could be Bridge Rectifier#2. Try disconnecting J6 and J7 to rule out anything on the playfield. If F7 still blows, I would say it could only be a shorted B2. Do you have a meter and do you know how to check a bridge rectifier? Stock up on 5 amp slo blows. You're probably going to go through a bunch to get this problem solved.

balrog socket (resized).JPG

bridge2, f7 (resized).JPG

lotr playfield (resized).JPG

relay pcb (resized).JPG

The relay is "O" in one diagram and "20" in the other. It is on the underside of the playfield near the gifts from the elves inserts.

You guys are all so awesome.

I'm dropping by a friend's place now to pick up a breaker fuse as I burned through about 10 of them last night trying to figure things out.

does anyone know if it makes sense that the issue with j7 would be causing this humming in the cabinet speaker?

Ok, so I snipped the bulb socket off, electrical taped the exposed ends (will have to fix when I get a new socket) and Balrog (and everything on the J7 circuit) are back in business!!!

On the downside, the buzzing/humming from the cabinet speaker persists!

Any thoughts on what this could be?

How do I check the CN4 connectors on the board to ensure they are ok?

Continuing here... When I unplug the speaker molex from the board (CN4) the buzzing obviously stops.

Could it be that I damaged the pins or part of the board pushing the connector into CN4?

The backbox speakers sound fine, but the cab speaker is letting out a really loud and maddening buzz.

Any help would be appreciated.

I was goofing around the other day and made up some custom cards. Posting here incase anyone case use them (expand for full size image).

LOTR Freeplay (resized).jpg

LOTR Instruction (resized).jpg

These are great! Will be printing out for sure.

Thanks!

I might be going to look at a LotR machine soon. Any particular thing that I should be looking for? I am unfamiliar with the title so any help would be great.

make sure ballrog works, see if there is pf wear from him swinging out as well.
Mmm make sure the little figures are around the pf.
Check the ring shot and make sure the magnet holds the ball, then flings it inside to the ramp.
Check arwin plastic, see if that is there or replaced, or protected. That plastic is super rare.

See if the One Ring shot can be made and the magnet grabs the ball. Look for excessive wear around the flipper buttons. Look at the Arwen plastic between the Paths of the Dead and the Shire. Is it cracked? Is Arwen actually on it? Protector installed? Do hits to the Balrog register OK?

LOL, we posted at the exact same time!

Magic

Is this important? It always puzzled me why my NIB machine had an Arwen plastic, and the LOTR full plastic set purchased at the same time had a different plastic.

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/just-ordered-lotr-plastic-setwhy-no-arwen-pic

After many, many years of my LOTR being folded, I set it up this week. I picked up the volcano mod from PinballCharlie, looks really nice installed... thumbs up on that. Installed a LED backboard, they weren't really around when I folded up my LOTR... didn't realize how much detail and 3D effect is in the translite when you have decent lighting.

Prior to me folding it, I bought the 10.0 roms but never installed. Looking through my parts, I have just 2 chips. For some reason, I thought it was more than 2 chips and I'm wondering if I lost some chips. Can anybody confirm if the 10.0 upgrade is just 2 chips?

Thanks!

Check post 1847. 3 chips needed. PAL chip from Pinbits, 10.02 ROM and 10.0 display ROM from That Pinball Place. Three are needed to run the shaker.

Can anyone confirm if the cab and back box speakers run off the same amp?

Looks like there are three TDA2030A's, U100 - U102 and each one drives a speaker. I can't tell which one drives which speaker from the schematic. They are just labeled 1, 2 , 3 at CN4. You could check the wire colors I suppose to see which speaker is which.

lotr sound (resized).JPG

As far as I understand 1+/- is the backbox (both speakers), 2+/- is the cabinet speaker, and 3+/- is unused.

Is there a way for me to test the TDA2030A's to check if they're faulty?

And does anyone know why 3 is left unused?

There are actually only 2, every component marked as "NS" indicated that the component position is Not Stuffed, so there is actually no part on the board.

Maybe that makes a little more sense, since the keypin is between 2 and 3. So 1 is actually the pins that are not wired in the molex. Does anyone know why they even have those pins there?

Oh, Not Stuffed. Cool. I learn something everyday!

Grrrrrrr!!!!!!! Someone put a really good DTR time on my game, and I can't get rid of it! I've been playing it like crazy, and since then I'm not even destroying the ring, let alone with a good time. I'll make 3 or 4 really good shots, and then drain. One game I had picked off the 4 shots and put the first ball into the magnet, and then my next shot to the ring bounced out and drained (I swear I would have had it if I'd hit the ball). Stupid game.

Time to 'ahem' replace the batteries. I had a heavy hitter visit and put a big GC score on my FT. Took me over a year to get the GC back.

I gave up on 2 ball DTR a long time ago. Turn that off and enjoy your pin.

Has a lot to do with levelling in my opinion. Had my game set up and was getting times in the 30s. Now it's moved to another spot, and level has changed, and now I'm lucky to get it under 1 minute.

Reset the saved scores. Make it your game

Batteries, in one of my games? Ha! The only ones I let stay are button batteries in SAM games. Everything else gets clipped off the board the moment I buy the game, usually before I even load it in my car.

I would be disappointed with myself if I did that. I reset games when I get them, just because with the different setup the scores don't equate. But I need to beat that time fair and square or it stands (no matter how much it irritates me). I'll knock that time out of there the old fashioned way, because then I can lord it over his head!

What was his posted DTR time that you are struggling to beat?

Destroy The Ring (DTR) time. My 16yr old son put up a time I would likely never beat. I swear I didn't know changing batteries would reset it.

I picked up a player's LOTR yesterday, so I'm now in the club.

I got it for under market rate due to cabinet issues. The orange side is pretty faded and the cab front is nearly faded to white. Otherwise it seems to be in fine shape and fully working.

I haven't gotten the game set up yet at my place, but am very excited to have this game.

Has anyone used the LOTR cabinet decals that are available? I'm thinking if they looked ok, I might eventually get them to spruce up this cab.

I have not, but it's one of the few games where I'd be willing to practice my decal-skills. The original print quality of the the decals (and playfield) isn't very good so I wouldn't stress much beyond the cost and time.

Does anyone happen to have a list of the figures for the game? I have a set sitting in a box, but i need to figure out if it has everything. It also has a Sauron figure which I do not recall seeing anyone use?

Many people put Sauron next to the right tower.

I'd be curious to know, too. Someone added a couple wraiths to mine and I'm not sure what's stock and what's not.

Got a really cool DMD board cover.

0C1F4728-83D8-492E-B60D-87B596C5CCA4 (resized).jpeg

You need a really good ColorDMD.

Yup, that's what I have.

That’s true